The Greyhound. 159 



greyhounds were inaugurated, and I believe, during 

 the time the most important ones continued, they 

 seldom flourished. Considerable harm was done by 

 them to the sport of coursing. They were gate- 

 money meetings, run in inclosures, with hares that 

 might have been turned down " the night before 

 the race," for anything anyone knew to the contrary. 

 Puss was sent through an opening, near to which the 

 slipper stood, he let her get away, then slipped 

 his dogs. The hare had, perhaps, a distance of 

 800 yards to go before she reached a refuge, into 

 which her pursuers could not enter. Usually she 

 escaped ; before doing so she might be turned a 

 few times, but a very fast hare could reach the 

 covert without being turned or wrenched by either 

 dog. A thousand-pound stake was to be won at one 

 meeting, at Kempton Park, not far from London. 

 Big prizes were also provided at Haydock Park near 

 Liverpool, where they did their best to breed their 

 own hares, and at Gosforth, near Newcastle. Not 

 one has proved pecuniarily remunerative, though the 

 system survives at Haydock and at two or three 

 smaller meetings. They are, however, not en- 

 couraged by the older class of coursing men, who 

 consider them too much like the rabbit coursing 

 with terriers and whippets, so popular in the 

 North of England, and affording more a test 



